Battle of Cold Harbor--Flag of Truce

E-130

On 5 June 1864, two hot days after Gen. Robert E. Lee's bloody repulse of Gen. Ulysses S. Grant’s frontal assault, Federal Lt. Col. Theodore Lyman met Confederate Maj. Thomas J. Wooten nearby on Cold Harbor Road to initiate written communication on the plight of the Union wounded between the lines. Confederate Gen. A. P. Hill’s trenches stood 800 yards west, and skirmishers’ rifle pits survive only 200 yards away. Because Lee and Grant disagreed on terms, two more days elapsed before they observed a two-hour flag of truce. Only a few wounded Federals were found alive. The remainder had either died, crawled to safety, or been retrieved under cover of darkness.

Department of Historic Resources, 2005

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References/Bibliographic Citation:

Theodore Lyman, With Grant and Meade from the Wilderness to Appomattox [Letters selected and edited by George R. Agassiz] (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1994), 149-154; R. Maney Wayne, Marching to Cold Harbor: Victory and Failure (Shippensburg, Pa.,: White Mane Pub. Co., 1995), 178-184; “The Truce at Cold Harbor,” North & South: The Official Magazine of the Civil War Society 7(January 2004): 76-85; John S. Salmon, The Official Virginia Civil War Battlefield Guide (Mechanicsburg, Pa.: Stackpole Books, 2001), 294-298; Emory Thomas, Robert E. Lee: A Biography (New York: W.W. Norton, 1995), 334-335; The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. Prepared Under the Direction of the Secretary of War by Robert N. Scott. 129 Vols. (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1889-1901), 35 part 3: 600, 638-639, 666-667.